Snapshots in Reverse
by nickygillian
Summary: A love story told in reverse. Bella & Edward.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: All I've been thinking about is fitting together a love story told backwards; thinking about all the little romantic things that don't seem romantic to anyone else but those in that couple. I should get the other things I'm writing done first but I'm not…**

"The reverse side also has a reverse side"

_Snapshots in Reverse_

I can hear her record player spinning under the vocals of one of her favorite bands. The male lead sinner croons

_And love - is all_

Her fingers are playing with my hair, spinning it into more of a mess than it was before; somehow. I wonder to myself if that's even possible. I have, after all, spent the whole day in bed. She doesn't care she just runs her hands along the upper ridge of my ear and I sigh and wish to see her deep brown eyes. She's always about touch, always has been and probably always will be.

"Bella," I start as I shift in the small black wrought iron bed. She makes a shushing sound and I follow its implications because there is simply nothing I wouldn't do for her.

She languidly moves away from me. Her toes tapping the wood floor, such a relaxing sound, but I stay still. She changes the record just before the song ends and though I find it odd, because that song is one of her top five, I don't ask.

My head is resting on my left ear and so even with my eyes open all I see is the light blue wall. She leans delicately on my shoulder to sing quietly with the vocalist

_Always when I get there all the pieces they just fall apart_

I smile, feeling the air leave her and caress me. There will never be anything quite like her. Her fingers glide down my arm and I savor the feeling, just a little too light, just a little too perfect. Then she's working on my back again. She's scratching off the dried henna that has been on for five hours.

As she works I hear her hum along to the song playing and by the time it ends Bella is just teasing me with her fingers. The henna remains are now scattered on the black bed slip. Her lips kiss me leisurely in the direct middle of my back. Moving tenderly to my neck at which point I pull myself up and twist to meet her.

She laughs and it's so not expected that I want to still and ask what is just so funny but I don't. I tuck my knees under me and lean into Bella. She kisses me back, brushing her fingers against my cheek feeling her way around my bone structure.

"I love you," I breathe out and she pulls back taking my bottom lip with her as far as it will go. It falls back with a small sound and her smile is radiant.

"Me too," she says before nodding her head toward the mess of music on the already cluttered floor, "pick something, please."

She lowers herself first to her elbows and then flat on the mattress. She giggles as I right myself and bend onto the floor to grab a CD I picked up just for a time like this. The case is a gaudy pink with cheap overused lettering in rainbow colours that play out in a random pattern.

I have already taken care of the plastic warp the music world encases their CDs in, from one previous listening, so all I have to do is slip it into the old gray and purple boom box that I got when I was twelve. I fumble a few keys before putting the song on repeat.

Bella Notte starts playing, a version done by Eugenia Zuckerman and the Shanghai Quartet. It was an unusual find at the local music haunt I frequent, one that was just too interesting to pass up. Disney songs remade into styles from classical composers, honestly who could not wonder.

I brush the dried henna from off the bed, tickling her bare legs as I do so, on purpose because I already miss her. Her pout is intoxicating and I focus on it only long enough to watch her mouth open and question me, "Belle Notte?" she asks and I know it's because she only half recognizes it in this form that sounds like Satie.

"Yes," I answer turning from her and grabbing the white duvet set that doesn't match any of the linens but that somehow fits _us_. She'd tossed it from the bed much earlier in fear the henna would do more than stain my skin.

I slip in beside her as the blanket falls over us. Immediately she's turned to me, her dark brown hair swirling around her, how I would imagine a mermaid's would underwater. The untamed curls that bend at will find themselves between my fingers as I twist them around my index. She rests her cheek on my chest and stares at the music player and the happiness is obvious on her features.

Bella has always preferred live music but she can't be expected to leave this bed, this house, enough to get too much of that. The record player is the only thing, musically; she cares to learn to operate. She has fifteen records that she replays at her whim. So the CDs, cassettes and mp3 players are all mine.

She loves listening to them with me but never bothers to operate any without me. It makes me feel like she needs me but she doesn't. I need her. Her body moves in and out with mine. Her exhaling as I inhale. Her loose white tank top lets her body heat touch my chest.

And just as I swear she's asleep she mummers, "I love you Edward," and everything is simply right in my life. Sure living with her isn't the easiest and sometimes she disappears for weeks and once she was gone for two months, sometimes she looses her keys for days and sometimes she forgets her age but she's mine.

And as I hold her to myself I don't wonder why I love her. There isn't anything that isn't endearing about her; even her disappearances. When she finds herself back in my arms, randomly after all that time, there is such a swelling in my heart that it's just worth it.

I don't want her to change, I don't want her to go on medication and loose herself, I don't want to loose her. I don't want her to turn into someone else just because some doctors think she's flawed because she's not.

Even so I think of all the moments in our lives, all the snapshots that led us here. And it all starts to pull me back in reverse. The most beautiful girl in the world and how we met and how I felt the first time I lost her or the next. Our longest separation and the first time I knew; just knew.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: Forgot a disclaimer in the first chapter. Don't own anything, don't own characters, don't own plot, don't own word choices, and don't own music I quote out of place. **

_Snapshots in Reverse_

I let the keys fall from my hand. They clang into the blue and white ceramic dish that Bella purchased a year ago from a pottery show. The one that she'd eyed with such imagination, the one that she said told a story.

And in that moment I miss her so much.

I tap my fingers twice on the side of the dish just seeing her own hands holding it to her chest in such reverence. I see myself carefully extricating it from her grasp while telling her she doesn't want to drop it. I see her laugh at me and let me take it, even thanking me for being so thoughtful.

I shake my head because getting trapped in memories about Bella when she isn't around is just _too_ painful. I pace into the kitchen, sighing as I do so, and glance at the clock; 5:17pm, a few minutes earlier than usual, traffic hadn't been as bad.

And as my eyes brush through the yellow kitchen I notice what should have been the first thing I see, a sliced apple, green like we like them, sitting in my spot in twelve practically identical cubes. The white plate underneath accents the colour of the fruit in such an intense way that at first I don't want to touch it.

But of course I do.

I take the plate and practically run to the bedroom because I already know what this means. And before I even get into the room I hear it

_And what's left to wait for here_

First song on the B side; she must have _just_ flipped the record over. I waver now, trailing my fingers down the peeling possibly wood door, biding my time, just waiting for the brass coloured doorknob to come in contact with my skin.

And when it does I hold my breath, turning it as my eyes focus, and bring me closer.

And there's Bella, wearing a breezy cotton dress, a light turquoise colour that brings her to life. She smiles up at me from her cross-legged position on our bed and holds a wood handled brush out to me.

Her hair is still wet from the shower she must have taken and she speaks, "Will you help me?"

And of course I do.

I pass the plate of apple bits over first. Taking off my grey fall coat off second, letting it collapse on the floor, the first clutter on the immaculate floor. It only looks so clean when it's just me. I hate it.

My hand lingers on her when I go to take the brush; she's so warm I have to issue a command to pull back. I tug it to me and crawl in behind her, letting the bed squeeze its protests as I do so.

"I've missed you," she tells me as I spread her damp hair on her back evenly.

"I've missed you more," I tell her truthfully. She turns her head halfway to eye me, letting me get the first real look at her eyes in much too long, she grins up at me before turning back. She knows I'm right.

I start at the bottom of her hair, make sure the ends are properly detangled; not even attempting running the brush straight through her hair. I go slowly because this is the best thing to happen to me since two weeks ago when she was last with me.

Two weeks is nothing in comparison.

"You don't work Saturday, right?" she wonders, whispers. Her head leans back into me because she wants me to stop, she knows I've finished brushing her hair, she knows I was done at least a minute ago.

I encircle her, still holding the brush, and answer, "I don't work Saturday." I take in her scent then, how fascinating she smells when she's moistened.

"Stay in bed all day with me," and it's a demand that she'll let me deny her if I wanted to.

I toss the brush away, practically throwing it into my CD collection. It knocks into the pile of newer, just purchased CDs I have, and the one I plan on Bella hearing tomorrow spills out on top. The gaudy pink cover saying, _I knew she'd be back today._

I kiss her temple, resisting her call because right now doesn't feel like the time to take her.

"Don't let them brown," she tells me pushing a piece of apple against my lips. I smile, open my mouth and kiss her finger.

I chew slowly leaning my head just on the side her head, just smelling her, just getting used to not missing her.

"You used yellow juice, they won't brown," I reply. She knows this but I like telling her I know it too. I know her. She yawns then and I release her. "If we're going to be in bed all day, won't you go for a walk with me?"

Bella loves walking. She loves walking with me more. I take care of her; I hold her and never let her trip.

And it's selfish of me to ask her to go for a walk because I know she can't resist. She's tired but I can't let her close her eyes just yet.

She stands up with me and takes my hand, her other still holding the plate with eleven pieces left. She leads me into the kitchen, I grab a plastic zip lock bag, before she asks or does so herself, and she pours the remaining bits into the bag.

The plate clatters into the sink and we're already away from the kitchen.

She slides on her brown faux leather sandals even though it's a little too cold to wear sandals now while I put on white slip on Vans. She picked them out because she hates laces and I wear them because I don't care about footwear.

The door closes behind us; she locks the door with her key that hangs beside a keychain that says her name, age, address, blood type and phone number. I left my own set in the blue and white ceramic bowl.

And we go out together leaving the record player spinning behind.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN: It's really strange to work backwards yet oddly more entertaining for me. So I think I'll update this story much quicker than all the others I've posted. Plus these 'chapters' are, after all, only short moments.**

**Anyway thanks for the reviews ;)**

_Snapshots in Reverse_

Halfway through the movie she grabs my hand. I shift toward her touch, blinking my eyes in adjustment. My focus has been shattered.

When I turn to my left she's not looking back. I want to beg her to return my eye contact, make this all the more intimate, but I don't. The theater is dark and cold, the air conditioning, humming. I feel the right side of my mouth itch up as I see our hands. She tenses when she senses my gaze.

I don't want her to stop or pull back so I look up to inspect the blades turning and start calculating their cycles.

Of course they're moving too quick to get an accurate count and on top of that Bella's playing with my fingertips. Nothing is more distracting than her and she knows it. She twists both rings on my hand, tracing the patterns etched into the metal.

I hate the rings for creating a barrier between us.

The movie is long forgotten. I re-close my eyes and visualize the intrigue that clouds Bella's face when we touch. How her eyes twitch almost in surprise, the way she molds against me.

And as I image this I feel her nails tickle up and down my knuckles.

Her nails are short and perfectly rounded. She paints them twice a week in an almost clear lacquer because she's paranoid of ripping them, or at least that's what she told me when I asked. At one point I thought she might be obsessive compulsive strictly by how she treated her nails. It was a silly theory that I don't believe any longer.

When the lights flicker on behind my lids I want to scream. They're ruining the tranquility and ease of the situation. I'm about to suggest we wait until they kick us out as I break open my lids but hesitate when I notice how she's enamored with my hand.

She has raised it up so it's near her mouth and her breath is breezing down my arm, hitting the silver watch I never take off. I'm obsessive about time; checking time; monitoring time.

She lowers her face and I suck in a pregnant breath. Her lips consume my ring in a cherished kiss.

And that's the moment my heart explodes and the air leaves me.

The sound startles her and she drops my hand. I regret everything before she speaks; which she does of course because it's just so _her._

"I'm sorry," she murmurs.

"Don't be, don't ever be," but I know, because she does, that she's not apologizing for the peck. I wish she was.

"We're the last ones," she comments, toneless.

"I like it better this way."

She confidentially leans toward me, and whispers in my ear, "Me too," a conversational pause has my toes curling, "why can't it always be like this?"

She's pulled away before I can ask what she means; already in the aisle. Am I that slow or is she that fast?

I follow her faithfully, watching her feet because she's wearing black kitten heels that we both don't trust her in. I can feel her emotionally pulling away even as her body heat radiates down my side.

My car is expensive, the interior; leather and there's a cherry scented deodorizer hanging from the mirror that Bella picked out. I told her it was ridiculous, because it was shaped like a foot, she said it was cute.

I bought it.

I open the door for her, extending my arm to guide her in.

And I take note that her physicality is all that's left for me to hold on to. I brace myself.

Once I'm in the driver's seat I tap the music back on, the song we were listening to croaks to life with a sympathetic voice pulsing through.

_It's so shameful of me_

He hums to us through the speakers. I feel the pain vibrate to the deepest part of my bones. I'm doing my best to fight off the self-induced drowning sensation.

I don't tell her not to go because I know how bad she gets when she stays past her expiration. She'll fidget and scratch at herself. She'll sit in the big black chair in the living room with two blankets, just shivering. And when I try to hold her she just gets worse.

She starts off with mentally closing herself off, not just from me. While she's half away already, she tries to enforce our physical bond, not necessarily by sex, usually more just touch. Bella has always been about touch, always.

After this, if she or I let it get so far, she's found herself literally frozen out, touch only makes it worse.

So she's completely gone though her body lays limp.

It's, frankly, worse for both of us if we don't let her go. And I've gotten better at losing her, or at least that's what I tell myself while I'm tidying up the kitchen. Bella has remained quiet since we parked, since we walked out of the theater, really.

Because I know what's happening, how we're pulling apart from one another, I do what I have to do, I tidy-up. I can't say medically why it's helpful, maybe just because I feel like I have control over the objects in my house, maybe not. You can never control another person, so you have to dominate something.

Andy Patridge's words come back to me in this time, his catchy guitar playing and gentle way of putting things echoing in my head.

_I simply want her in my arms forever more_

He explains. I throw the dish towel haphazardly over the edge of the sink before I find Bella to make 'forever more' into 'tonight'.


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: So this chapter was kind of a stab at me because I always do what Edward does; live in the past. But I agree with him more than Bella, I love being able to go back and read how something made me feel, how something happened in perfect clarity. I'm a dreadful story teller, whenever I try to explain to a person how something happened I stumble around the point and miss the jokes, every time. If I write it down at least I know at one point in time it was a smooth story.**

**Anyway thanks for reading, if you're reading. ;)**

_Snapshots in Reverse_

Her hair tickles me as she leans over to peer at the computer screen. I've been working for hours typing out things I need to remember; parts of my life that I don't ever want to forget; mostly writing about Bella.

"I hate this desk," she remarks in a cheerful voice.

I turn to meet her eye but she resists, reading what I've been writing for the past while. I feel self conscious; I guess anyone that writes knows what I mean. It seems fine to type up a fairy tale story on 'word' only to later hide it away so no one but you will locate it; fine to hide your personal feelings deep within the zeros and ones of computer technology.

Of course it's almost, but not quiet, as personal as buying a pastel pink diary with fancy Italian scrawl and a flimsy lock. Maybe I was being just as childish…

So the flip side of course was showing the most important person in your life what you've really been thinking, what you've been getting out of a situation when their own mind has been formulating an entirely different interaction. And of course since she's reading my words she'll now know everything, all the embarrassing things that I take note of; that I've always wished she wouldn't see.

"Hmm," she hums, and I can practically feel the vibration from her neck. The song I was listening to through 'youtube' claps and tingles along with her.

"I wish you would tell me what you're thinking," I tell her with as much authority as possible.

"I wish I wouldn't have to sneak a look at your writing to understand you," she points out.

_It's waiting just for you_

The obscure singer mentions along with the synthetic rumblings that could only come from the eighties.

"Why do you hate this desk?" I finally ask, knowing that she won't tell me anything as important as what she's thinking. That would be much too easy.

"There is nothing worse than seeing you diligently typing away."

Her eyes finally find mine and she appears so forlorn that I prod her statement, "What do you mean?"

"Always living in the past, I miss you when you disappear there."

My eyes scrunch in confusion, surely I have no idea what this means. I force myself to say so in lesser words that I figure she can relate to, "My past is full of you, it's all about you; it's only about you."

And that perfect, yet small, smile assaults her affectionate lips. She takes a step around me so she's leaning in front of the computer affectively blocking out my past. "But I'm right here."

I want to say, 'but you won't be forever' or even, 'I miss you when you leave' but I don't. I don't because it's unnecessary and though it might be hard to admit it, I know, or fear one day she won't come back. I don't care if the rest of my life is lonely; I just want to remember her as she was, as she is. I'd rather live in fiction based on fact than push myself into another relationship.

I raise myself so we're level and nuzzle her face next to mine. I can feel that I've taken her by surprise by the way she allows a giggle to break her previously stony mood. And it's worth it, none of our problems have been solved, of course, but if she's with me I don't care.

Her eyelashes dart as she blinks, a butterfly kiss, isn't that what they call them? I remember, very distantly, an aunt teaching me about them when I was eight. She'd raised my hand to her eye and blinked, she was a strange and insightful lady, but her 'kiss' was nothing like Bella's.

I could feel words under Bella's lashes, could feel her passion even in such a gesture.

And when I turn just a fraction to catch her lips under and in mine she doesn't hesitate to deepen the kiss. Her fingers play at my collar bone, nails dipping into my skin just hesitantly. I slow the embrace almost immediately because I've been wanted to ask something of Bella for a few days now.

Her eyes, doe-like in their sensitivity, chastise me for pulling away. I don't apologize, instead I say, "Won't you dance with me," like it's a normal thing to ask of my beautiful Bella who I've never seen dance, not even once before, not even in passing. She grins at me and blushes, God does she blush, taking me on an emotional high.

"I can't," she manages biting her bottom lip like she's just told me she broke a vase.

I don't care; I reach around her, toggle around through my favorite songs and pull up the one I've been dreaming about for months now.

The four vocals emanate from the gray dome shaped speakers, flooding the room in atmosphere. And as the lead promises

_I only have eyes for you_

I understand and fully believe him. I only have eyes for her I don't see anything else, or at least everything else is blurred in her wake.

I take her hand in mine and pull her away from the desk she hates and toward the empty area in our living room. The carpet brushes my bare toes in a memorable way and I make a note in my head to add that to my description later when I get to jotting down this perfect moment.

I hook my arm around her so I'm as close as can be and sway, she follows me, dancing is honestly all about the leading, and then we're floating there on cloud seven and a half.

She stumbles over my toe and stiffens, "I'm dreadful at this," she blurts.

"No you're not; you're not dreadful at anything."

I breathe in her scent as I spin her around carefully, and she laughs along with the movement. She smells like she always does mixed with toothpaste. I hadn't noticed when we were kissing, how had I missed that?

See, this is what I mean about details, if I don't document her, who will? If I I'm not here to know how she likes her bagels with a minimal amount of cream cheese and half a grapefruit in the morning, who will? Because it feels like nothing but her matters, that I could be shot dead tomorrow and it would all be worth it.

Maybe love isn't so much about compromise as forgetting yourself to another. In the end I don't care. I spin her around once more, a little faster, as the song dies with an unexpected crackle.


	5. Chapter 5

**AN: So yes, this chapter is sort of a different feeling from the past ones but I was in a different mood and I really, really, really (yes three really worthy) wanted to try a little bit more conversation. I love quipping back and forth sometimes.**

**Thanks for the reviews they are addictive like chocolate milk which I'm going to go find because now that I mentioned it I'm starving for it. Run on sentences, how I adore and overuse thee.**

_Snapshots in Reverse_

"I don't understand why Alice forced us into this," Bella whispers. She doesn't waste time with 'good morning' or even 'hi;' no Bella goes straight to the point.

I'm sitting by the window, across the room from her, have been for over an hour. The window's fixings are pulled back an inch so there is just enough light for me to pick up the curves that make up Bella. "Alice likes to gamble." Bella's body shifts under the tan sheet, her face hidden under, hair escaping wherever it sees fit.

"So why are _we_ here," she prods.

I laugh anxiously, "I like to gamble as well." I refuse to explain any further so to bypass her questions I push through another avenue, "Are you going to get up or do I have to get in there with you?"

"Come in here with me," she says and I can hear a smile behind the request.

"You don't want to enjoy the city?"

"It's Las Vegas, there's nothing I want to enjoy here. Well," she persists, "Nothing here to enjoy that I couldn't enjoy anywhere."

"Anywhere," I snort already deciding to play hard ball with her. I start buttoning the boring white dress shirt instead of following Bella's hormonal decisions. Her eyes peak up from under the sheet, she looks dazed, still tired, but she's watching me with earnest eyes.

"Don't." Her tone implies that I've upset her but I want to be selfish, just this once; just this whole day, actually. "Please come back to bed."

"No."

"Why not? You don't want to be near me?" I chuckle because we both know the answer.

"Can't you humor me; just this once?" I throw the curtains back; hearing her scrambling to ensconce herself back within the holds of the sheet.

"I'm drowning in these possibly dirty hotel sheets and you won't even come in with me to further sully them," she whimsically announces from her prison.

"No, I won't," I scratch my chin as I watch her shape contort around, she's uncomfortable without me in there with her, it does something to my ego to realize this. It was enlightening to watch her for that hour previously, watch as she slowly deteriorated by herself.

How her arms looked for some warmth that wasn't there, how her body seemed devoid of emotion, the frown that formed on her lips.

Her body basically turned ridged when I fled to stare at her like I was some perverted stalker. And like a stalker I got satisfaction preying on her weakness.

Her face usually cuddled against my chest but without me there she'd found herself pulling back from the harsh breeze of reality. That was the worst part; when her contented face had turned to stone and then altogether disappeared.

"And they _probably _aren't dirty anyway." I laugh as she again pops up from her veil. Her hair looks incredibly tangled while her eyes scold me, glare at me, and tell me to drop the asshole guise I've decided on.

Her mouth pulls into a pout, the most convincing pout anyone, ever, has seen. It smashes into me with the colossal force of a tsunami. I brace myself on my morals, on my beliefs, on anything that can keep me from giving in.

"Give me some credit," my words sweep past me sounding controlled and flippant; two things that I'm not, at least not when it comes to Bella.

"You have loads of credit, why won't you spend some on me," she's kidding and egging me on. Regardless of how much I want to give in I refuse to let her play her games with me.

"No," simple and direct.

Her eyebrows pull down, I've wounded her.

"Because you have better things to do," I know she wants this to sound sarcastic but it doesn't, she's deflated by my denial and it therefore comes out sounding serious. I don't have better things to do, not exactly. I just have my plans; that's all. Bella's capricious and I'm, well I'm, the kind of man who carries a planner with me at all times.

"Don't you dare look sad," I warn her. Bella doesn't look surprised at my loaded words but I am. I'm not used to being so assertive, it's not that Bella has me whipped, no, I would never say that. In fact I'm usually the one deciding what we do, where we go, but that's only because she's fairly passive. Whenever- or usually whenever- she asks for something I give _it_ to her. I give _in_ to her. I love giving in to her.

She turns my words in her head, I see them pricking through her nerves and when she comes up with a response her lips have twisted into a smirk, "Look, I just want you; don't you want me?"

And she knows she has me there, of course she does. "Yes I want you."

"Then why aren't you with me?"

"I'm here, with you," I point out.

"No you're over there, looking adorable in formal black slacks and a crisp white shirt, all the buttons done up but two," her eyebrows scrunch as she relays my attire back to me, "It looks like you're dressed up for a wedding."

I shrug just as casually as if she told me I had a splotch of blue paint on the old shirt I use when I work under the car.

"Is something important happening today?" she asks and she blushes like she's scared she's forgotten something basic, something she should remember.

"Nothing planned," I tell her and that's a complete, huge, lie because of course I have something planned.

"But I'm cramping your style," she laughs, throwing off the sheet so that I get to see what I missed in refusing her. She's not naked, no, thank God, she's wearing a light blue cotton bra and matching panties but that's enough to stump me.

I stop to fantasize about what I've passed on. Surely I have the time…

But no, no, I remind myself letting the quick foray pass before realigning my goals. What I've planned is more important.

Bella slips on a blue gauzy dress before working on detangling her hair. She walks as if on a cloud and I wonder if when she learns of my scheme the cloud will become cerebral and she'll slip through.

"What do you have planned?" she asks, just like that; just like she can hear my monologue with myself.

"Everything you come to Vegas for."

"This sounds like a bad cliché decision," she laughs.


End file.
